Bronin plans for city’s recovery

In State of the City address, mayor takes stock of pandemic’s toll, likely return of summer activities

“We’ll still be wearing masks and keeping our distance, but we need to hear jazz in Bushnell Park, watch baseball and soccer, dance on Pratt Street, go to a concert at the riverfront or just hear a band playing on the corner as we walk down the street. We need to be alive with that this summer.”

HARTFORD — In a State of the City address that spanned the lows of the pandemic and the highs of the community’s resilience, Mayor Luke Bronin Monday evening shared his vision for revival after COVID-19 — and said it’s time to bring some life back to Hartford.

The pre-recorded State of the City, which Bronin delivered in front of the cement walls of the renovated Swift Factory, praised city workers and residents for their response to the health crisis and called on them to bring life back to Hartford as restrictions lift and vaccines roll out this summer.

“Bringing fun and activity and joy back needs to be at the center of recovery, and not just for our kids but for our community as a whole,” Bronin said. “Like every city across the country, our city has felt hollow and empty without the energy and cultural life that makes us a city. This summer, we need to bring

Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin, in a recorded address

that back.”

Among his announcement, Bronin said he hopes to see a new public library branch open in the Swift Factory — the long-vacant, gold leafing facility in the North Endthat reopened last year as a hub of small businesses and nonprofits.

Bronin also shared two goals for this summer: to give every school-age child in Hartford the chance to do something they love, “just for fun,” and for music, arts, sports and dining events to fill the calendar every day and night by mid-July.

The mayor said he is reconvening two of the city’s five “recovery working groups” to help meet those goals.

“We’ll still be wearing masks and keeping our distance, but weneedtohear jazz in Bushnell Park, watch baseball andsoccer, dance on Pratt Street, go to a concert at the riverfront or just hear a band playing on the corner as we walk down the street,”

Bronin said. “We need to be alive with that this summer.”

The mayoral address, required each year by city charter, took stock of the damage the past year has wrought on Hartford.

COVID-19 killed 278 residents and hospitalized more than 1,000.

Massive unemployment left countless families hungry and unable to pay rent.

A spike in gun violence, mirrored in other cities, terrorized Hartford neighborhoods, and acts of police brutality around the country spurred a reckoning over racism in law enforcement.

And in Hartford’s struggling schools, most students fell further behind and some stopped showing up, in person or online.

Some of the steps taken to honor those losses and address the challenges are still taking shape, Bronin said.

Thousands of daffodils planted in the fall in commemoration of COVID19 victims will beginto bloom in a few weeks, he said.

Candidates will be interviewed this month for a new inspector general position that will grant new powers to the city’s reformed Civilian Police Review Board.

The city will also hear recommendations this month on the formation of a new team of professional crisis workers who would respond instead of or alongside police to calls involving mental illness, emotional distress, trauma and addiction. Bronin announced that project, costing the city $5 million over four years, in June.

And while a citywide cyber attack in the fall delayed efforts to launch free WiFi in Hartford, the first phase of that public-private initiative is nearing completion, Bronin said. The pilot programs will take place in Northeast Hartford and Frog Hollow, two sections of the city with high concentrations of underemployment and poverty.

“When we work together, challenge by challenge, opportunity by opportunity, it all adds up,” Bronin said. “We know that because we’ve seen it start to happen.”

The mayor was speaking of the economic development, housing boom in the downtown, and cultural momentum Hartford was experiencing just before the coronavirus pandemic brought the city—and country— to a shuddering halt last year.

Bronin said that’s why he chose to record his State of the City address from the Swift Factory, which non-profit developer Community Solutions has made into a beacon of revitalization in the North End neighborhood andthe wider Promise Zone.

The mayor’s chief of staff, Vasishth Srivastava, says the city is now working with the Hartford Public Library, Community Solutions and state lawmakers to try to relocate the Barbour Street branch — closed during the pandemic — to Swift.

“Those are the kinds of victories that add up if we work to make them happen again and again,” Bronin said of the restoration of Swift. “And that’s why, for all the challenges we face, I have as much confidence in our city’ s future as I ever have.”